Craft and process tips for authors: April 28, 2026

The publishing experts we follow have plenty of craft and process advice to offer. 

Here are the ones that we thought were can't-miss for our authors:

• How to write an unreliable narrator readers still root for: Author Rea Frey shares her five tips for creating a character like Gone Girl's Amy who feels real, not like a narrative trick (Writer's Digest). 

• Creating microtension in your story through repetition: In this excerpt from Masterful Microtension: The Essential Element of Powerful Fiction, C.S. Lakin provides an instructive example of the literary devices anaphora and epiphora (Jane Friedman).

• Keeping conflict on the page: Author Jeanne Kisacky's real-life tendency to want to fix everyone's problems extends to her writing, and so she makes herself consider a number of questions — for her story's sake — to ensure her characters don't get out of their messes too easily (Writer Unboxed).

• Coping mechanism thesaurus — dissociation: Becca Puglisi gives examples of how dissociation, as a way to process and handle stress and hurt, can hold your character back (Writers Helping Writers).

• How to write authentic emotion: Angela Ackerman encourages writers to use the two universal areas of their characters' backstory to guide how their characters express — or suppress — their emotions (Writers Helping Writers).

• Discipline versus devotion: Author Barbara O'Neal has been gritting her teeth and forcing herself to write, but a TikTok video recently prompted her to reconsider the way in which she approaches a work in progress that isn't coming easily (Writer Unboxed).